


Freaking Out + 1

by KHGiggle



Series: Mystery Skulls Animated + 1 [4]
Category: Grrl Power (Webcomic), Mystery Skulls Animated
Genre: +1 au, Arthur's trying, Lewis is angry, Sydney gets her own flower, freaking out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 12:05:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18894292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KHGiggle/pseuds/KHGiggle
Summary: While Lewis encounters Shiromori, Vivi and Sydney try to get Arthur to rest.





	Freaking Out + 1

Shiromori got to the cave too late.

It had taken months to reach the site of the energy flare. She’d had to find a way to cross an entire ocean and then more land than she cared to calculate. Still, she’d thought she’d be able to get something when she summoned HIS flower.

The red lotus shriveled into ash almost as soon as it bloomed.

Shiromori snarled as she threw the ash down. The first trace she’d found in over a century, and she’d lost the trail before she could even try following it. She punched the cave wall and started to stomp away. She at least knew what continent HE was on now. She could just keep looking and watching and waiting until-

Shiromori’s thoughts were cut off as she got a whiff of spiritual energy. She held up her hand and let a purple flower bloom. It was thorny, scentless, dry as paper. Its owner was most definitely dead. But not gone. Shiromori smirked. That had to be connected. She blew the rose, scattering the petals, and withdrew into the ground.

It took some time for the petals to settle in an empty lot. Shiromori popped out of the ground and glanced around. No ghost, but the petals had settled on a cracked heart.

Ah. An anchor. The ghost must have withdrawn inside of it. That made things easier. She placed a leg on it and held out a hand, four flowers bloomed, none of them the one she was looking for. She scowled at the useless flowers, took out her scissors, and snipped them off.

A brown-yellow mullein, the inside streaked with many colors, burning with a purification power that Shiromori would have to avoid.

A blue orchid, not yet fully bloomed with purple infecting its petals. Inconsequential.

An orange black-eye-susan, half wilted yet scented strongly and pleasantly. Perhaps a nice meal, but not dangerous.

Another purple rose, no moisture in its petals and thorns coating its stems. An angry ghost, but none of her concern.

Shiromori picked up the anchor, forcefully searching for the particular energy she wanted and forcing it to the surface.

A red lotus bloomed from the palm of her hand and did not wilt. A crazed smiled spread across her face. She finally had him.

And then the anchor started to glow. Shiromori’s grin dropped and she glanced at it as purple fire shot out of it and formed into a suited skeleton, glaring at her.

This was a high level vengeful wrath with fire powers. Shiromori was a tree. Her eye twitched.

Lewis simply wound up, lit up his fist, and hit Shiromori’s head as hard as he could. Her head snapped off and went flying. Lewis couldn’t really bring himself to care. He grabbed his heart, burning her arm as he did so, and put it back where it belonged. It floated and beat as it normally did, even if it was still blue and cracked. A sudden rustling sound had him rotating his head back towards Shiromori.

A tree had sprouted where Shiromori’s neck had been. A moment later, the rest of her head followed. A flower bloomed at her left shoulder before her arm grew back as well. She smirked at him and pulled out her scissors in a stance that made it clear she was willing to fight.

Lewis decided he was also willing to fight and got into a basic boxing stance with his fists on fire.

And then Shiromori remembered she’d finally found HIM. She looked between Lewis and the lotus before deciding she might not get another chance. She blew the lotus petals away and burrowed back into the ground to follow.

Lewis stared at the hole in the ground, wondering what the heck that had been before deciding it wasn’t important. He’d rather check his anchor over. The cracks didn’t seem too deep, and it was still pulsing. He opened it to look at the picture of him and Vivi and Sydney.

God, he missed them so much. Why didn’t they recognize him?

Okay, he was a skeleton, but there weren’t many people as big as him, and his hairstyle was the same. Someone should’ve recognized him.

Lewis noticed something moving on the ground and looked down to see a couple of flowers inching along the ground. He blinked and picked them up.

Call him crazy, but these two reminded him of Vivi and Sydney. They even somehow felt like the two of them.

More movement caught Lewis’ eye and he saw an orange flower inching away.

Arthur!

Lewis immediately and angrily stomped on the flower.

Several miles away, Arthur jerked violently as a horrible feeling shot up his spine. He looked around quickly to make sure nothing weird was trying to sneak up on him.

“You okay?” asked Sydney from where she was messing with her phone.

“Do you see anything weird?” asked Arthur.

Sydney frowned and jumped out the van to look around. “Nope. I guess whatever spooked you was just normal…”

Arthur slumped from relief. “Good.”

“…Or you were hallucinating from lack of sleep,” finished Sydney. “’Cause I seriously didn’t hear anything.”

Arthur chuckled nervously. “I’m not that tired.”

“Arthur, your bags have bags,” deadpanned Sydney. She glanced towards Vivi, who was out like a light. “Um, have you not been sleeping?”

“…No?”

Sydney huffed. “What do you have to work on? You finished your arm already!”

“I can do upgrades,” muttered Arthur.

Sydney nodded as she gave him that. “Okay, fine, but it couldn’t hurt to take a few nights off to get some actual sleep.”

Arthur nodded in agreement. “Yeah.”

Sydney sighed. She didn’t think he was gonna listen to her. She glanced at his laptop. “What’re you working on?”

Arthur panicked. He was working on a map of where to look for Lewis, but he couldn’t tell her that because it would knock Sydney out and, possibly, erase some of the map. Somehow. He blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “Fanfiction!”

That was a horrible lie. Arthur didn’t write fanfiction. He was a horrible writer. Sydney knew this and decided that if Arthur wasn’t going to be straight with her than she was going to mess with him. “Huh. What about?”

“Uh, Transformers.”

“Oh…which universe?”

“The movies.”

Sydney made a face. “Ugh. Those movies sucked. You trying to fix ‘em up?”

“Yes!”

“How’re you gonna do that?”

“Um…” There were so many things that Arthur needed to fix with almost no idea how to do so. “No fanservice or sexism.”

Sydney nodded. “That would help.”

“No crude humor.”

“To make room for real humor.”

Arthur searched for something else. “Get Sam a new actor.”

Sydney snorted. “It’s a bit late for that. So, what’s the plot?”

Arthur blanched. “Uh…uh…” What did he say? “Cats?”

Sydney burst out laughing. “I’m sorry. I just-I just-”

Vivi sat up. “What’s going on?”

“Funny joke,” said Sydney as her laughs tapered into giggles.

Arthur blushed. Looks like he’d been caught. He decided to settle for minimizing the map. He frowned as he saw that Lewis was starting to disappear from his desktop photo. Again. “Okay, okay, there’s no fanfiction.”

Vivi blinked. “Since when do you write fanfiction?”

“I don’t. That’s the joke.”

“Hey, help me convince him to go to sleep,” said Sydney. “We can call Lance and ask for him to tow us back to town in the morning. Maybe stop for breakfast. I could really go for those fake hash browns from McDonald’s. And tofu bacon. Everything’s better with bacon. What do you think Mystery? Do you want some bacon?”

Mystery yawned. He was trying to sleep, thank you. Although if she was offering, he wouldn’t say no.

Vivi yawned. “Arthur? Could you get some sleep?”

He could, but he didn’t want to. He didn’t want any more nightmares that woke him with screams and sobs and pain but no memories at all. “No, I’m good. I’m fine.” He closed the laptop. “I was just about to get back to work.” He jumped off the back of the van and walked back to the front.

Sydney groaned. “We gotta find a way to make him get more sleep. This can’t be healthy.”

Vivi yawned. “Yeah…”

“Is it possible for someone to die from lack of sleep?” Sydney questioned as she flopped down onto the mattress they kept in the back. “Or would you just go crazy? I don’t want Arthur to go crazy or die! Craziness is overrated…”

Vivi snorted and lay down as well scratching Mystery behind the ears. “I can drive us back when he’s done.”

Sydney gave Vivi a terrified look. “Vivi, Vivi, no. No, no, no. You’re driving is scary enough during the day. And we’re next to a cliff.”

Vivi pouted. “I’m not that bad…”

“You are, you really are,” said Sydney. She groaned and pressed her hands over her eye area. “But I still don’t have a license so I can’t do it either. So either sleep-deprived Arthur drives, you drive all crazy, or we just sleep here tonight and hope a police officer doesn’t drive by.”

The girls were silent as they listened to Arthur work on the engine. It quickly lulled them to sleep.

Mystery was checking the two over when something bright caught his attention. A few red petals flew into the van. He stared at the petals in horror as he picked one up and sniffed it. It was Shiromori’s scent.

Oh no…

 

Lewis had the odd ability to conjure up food and drink. It wasn’t filling, and he didn’t need to eat anyway, but it was the only way for him to taste anything anymore.

Right now, he was sitting and drinking some tea while he thought about what to do. He needed to find the Mystery Skulls again, preferably while they were out of Tempo.

Maybe he shouldn’t have crushed the Arthur flower. He probably could’ve used it to track Arthur.

Lewis glanced at the smear of ash on the ground. Maybe it made things inconvenient, but he didn’t regret burning it at all.

These flowers on the other hand…Lewis turned his attention to the two flowers. He kind of wanted to keep them, but it seemed like they would inevitably get set on fire. Downside of being a fire ghost he supposed. He turned them over in his hand. If they worked like the other flower, they would track the girls. That was almost as good as Arthur since the three were usually together when they were out of town. So, he could use these instead.

Much better.

…How was this supposed to work? The tree lady had blown that other flower (Who did that belong to anyway?) and gone after the petals. Lewis tried blowing on them. Didn’t work. He supposed that wasn’t surprising considering…no lungs. He guessed he could follow them on the ground, but that would take longer than he’d like and might damage the flowers.

He paused and glanced at his anchor. Maybe if he could feel the pull. He popped it open and placed it on the table. He winced. The flowers wouldn’t fit in there, but maybe some petals. He carefully plucked two petals from each flower and placed them on top of the photo before closing the anchor.

The anchor flashed orange, and the cracks disappeared. Huh, hadn’t expected that. He put his anchor back in front of where a hole had been ripped in his chest. He could feel a pulling sensation that he assumed would lead him to Vivi and Sydney. One way to find out.

Lewis dismissed the table and tea he’d made and floated down the hill. It would take a while to catch up to them, so he’d better get started.

As Lewis reached to road below, a light caught his eyes. He turned and saw a semi-truck heading right for him.

Lewis belatedly realized that he’d forgotten to check for cars. Oops. He temporarily dispersed as the truck slammed into him.

He could make this work. He spread his energy through the truck. The truck turned black and purple with fire licking around it. Lewis was briefly aware of the driver jumping out and decided to reform in the driver’s seat. He could feel the truck like he could the mansion he’d formed before.

Well, that had worked better than he’d expected.

Lewis checked the direction of the pull and slammed his foot into the gas, speeding off. “I’m coming Arthur,” growled Lewis. “You’re not getting away this time.”


End file.
